By Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Crude oil dipped in electronic trading on Wednesday, while a weekly inventory report revealed a larger-than-expected rise in stockpiles, and commodities weakened across the board.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery CLM11 -0.23% shed 27 cents, or 0.2% to $110.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange during Asian trading hours.
Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a rise in crude-oil inventories of 3.2 million barrels for the week ended April 29. Analysts polled by Platts had forecast an increase of around 1.7 million barrels.
The trade group also reported a lift in gasoline inventories of 657,000 barrels, broadly in line with expectations, while stockpiles of distillates were down 1.5 million, against expectations for a rise of 1.2 million, according to Platts.
The API print comes ahead of a more closely watched report by the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration.
Analysts at Barclays Capital said the fundamentals of the oil market “remain strong overall.”
“So far, the steady increase in oil prices has had limited impact on global oil demand, with no signs of a slowdown evident in emerging-market oil demand. Despite further increases in domestic retail prices in both China and India (for example, the phasing away of subsidies), oil demand has continued to rise strongly,” the analysts wrote in a research note.
Commodities were softer on Wednesday, with silver SIN11 -3.11% leading the declines, falling more than 3%. Read more about metals.
The U.S. dollar, meantime, strengthened. The dollar index DXY -0.02% , which measures the greenback against a basket of six currencies, traded at 73.127, up from 73.053 in late North American trading Monday. Read more about currencies.
